Today I am setting aside my usual Monday Medley post in favor of opening the door to my 2015 Card of The Month Club giveaway.

As the holidays begin to creep up on me I thought it would be fun to start the party early! I am also giving myself permission to take the next few weeks off from blogging so that I can dream up some fun new ideas for next year and really enjoy the holidays.

So, on to the rules for entry!
Again this year, I will offer FOUR chances to receive a card a month from yours truly!
Here’s how this works:
You need to leave a comment on this post telling me how much you’d love to be the winner by JANUARY 1st. Remember to include the sequential number for your comment so I know who you are. (For example, if the person before you is the first to leave a comment, your comment would be #2)

On January 4th, I’ll use Random.org to choose FOUR winners and on Monday the 11th I’ll send the first round of cards off.

Here’s what’s kinda cool about this. If you’re chosen as one of the winners, you get a different card every month that you can use to give to someone else!

There’s really only one proviso on this offer and that is in regards to whether the winner(s) are US residents or not. I have always left this open to anyone who is good enough to follow my blog. While I want to continue to leave it open for anyone and everyone, I will adjust my shipping plans for anyone living outside of the US. In that instance, I will ship ALL 12 cards in a single package in January.

Well? What are you waiting for?!

Send me a little blogger love and maybe you’ll be one of the four lucky 2015 Card of the Month Club winners!

I hope you had a good weekend. I spent most of Saturday with my best friend which gave me an entire day of Twyla-time which was exactly what I needed after a long and busy week. We toured the Bachmann Idea House to see what delights they had in store for the holiday season and, of course, came away with more ideas than financial means to make them happen, but I did find a funky “tree” to put in my bathroom for Christmas. I’m trying not to feel guilty about jumping past Thanksgiving in my holiday plans. : )

So, today I have just two samples to share with you using the Bright and Beautiful set. I had an ornament that I was putting together too, but sadly it got into a fight with a cup of coffee and lost. : ( Yes…I know,,,Ii shouldn’t have open beverages on my work table…

I hope you’ll agree however, that the cards I have to share are a nice representation of this pretty set.

My first is a crisp white card layered on Smoky Slate and again on Soft Sky. I stamped the largest of the three stars in Night of Navy directly on the face of the white card. The medium and small stars were stamped in Soft Sky and Smoky Slate and either die-cut or hand trimmed. I stacked the three together using foam dimensionals and added a sparklu blue gem to the center of the smallest. The organdy and silver cord bow is attached with a glue dot and “JOY” is stamped in Night of Navy to finish things off.

My second card is done in ivory, Wisteria Wonder and Smoky Slate. The larger stars are stamped in Wisteria Wonder and the smaller in Smoky Slate directly on the ivory card,

The center focal point is also stamped in Smoky Slate but I added “JOY” to the center in a small ivory circle using Wisteria Wonder and layered it on a scallop circle of Wisteria Wonder.

A few randomly placed silver nailheads and rhinestones give this one lots of extra sparkle.

I hope everyone had as much fun this weekend as I did. I spent 3 wonderful days at a stamping retreat with 4 lovely ladies. We overdosed on delicious food, laughs, and creativity and I came home with over 140 cards completed. Whew! Whatever will I work on when I go on my next retreat in February?!?

Today I have a few ideas using the new Wondrous Wreath set.

My first card is a Christmas card, but my other two samples take a step away from the holidays and offer up some ideas for other ways to use this fun set.

For this first example, I started with a base card of Cool Caribbean. I stamped the Hardwood background stamp with Smoky Slate ink on ivory cardstock and trimmed it to fit my card.

The sentiment was stamped with Handsome Hunter, chevron clipped on either end and layered on Cool Caribbean.

The wreath and ornaments were stamped with Lucky Limeade, Handsome Hunter and Cool Caribbean and either diecut or punched. I also added a couple of glitter paper ornaments for a little more sparkle. All of the ornaments were strung with silver cord and arranged in the wreath with a pretty turquoise and silver bow to hide the ends of the cord. A couple tiny gems on the ornaments finish this one off.

My second card today would be perfect for an anniversary, wedding or, with a different sentiment, Valentine’s Day.

The card base is a half sheet of white that I layered with a Pretty in Pink panel which was folder embossed.

I only used the berry stamp for this one and just used Lucky Limeade and Handsome Hunter in first and second generation ink to create the wreath. The sentiment was stamped with Handsome Hunter. Both pieces were layered on a panel of Old Olive and then tied with gold ribbon.

I punched two hearts – one of gold metallic and one of Pretty in Pink, glittered them up with clear Stickles and adhered them to the wreath. I dabbled a little Stickles on the wreath as well so it sparkles. (Sorry my photo doesn’t capture that very well.)

Finally, for my last sample, I abandoned the wreath completely and pulled out the little 5 petal flower that is included in the set.

I stamped the flowers in Tempting Turquoise, Crushed Curry, Melon Mambo and Elegant Eggplant and mounted them on a strip of folder embossed white. I layered it again on Melon Mambo cs and scalloped the bottom edge before adhering it to the card. A Melon Mambo sentiment in the lower right and a few gems wrap this one up.

Scentsational Season.

This is such a sweet set to play with and the matching dies make cutting the images a snap.

For my first sample I started with a simple white textured card trimmed with a scalloped edge of berry red (American Crafts). I added three bands of Washi tape across the middle of the card in green and gold to break up that expanse of white.

The candy canes and sentiment were stamped on white and layered on slightly larger pieces of textured white. I trimmed the top and bottom edge of the sentiment with Washi tape and added a gold cord bow to each of the candy canes. Each one is mounted to the card with foam dimensionals and then decked out with a few crystal gems.

I am always looking for cute packaging ideas for my coworkers or for other things like place setting goodies or gift cards so when I stumbled on these cute boxes at Paper Source last week I was thrilled.

The finished box is 4.25 x 1.5 x 4.25 which makes it the ideal size for a small bag of candies, a gift card, hot chocolate packet or even a cookie!

The boxes come flat so there’s a bit of assemblly required. To start, I trimmed the front and back of the box as well as the flap with Season Of Style DSP then stamped the sentiment and two gingerbread men. The gingerbread men were die cut and the sentiment punched with the large oval punch. I also punched a Cherry Cobbler scallop oval for layering and added all three to the box with dimensionals. The flap tucks just behind the scallop oval to keep the box closed.

For my last sample, I thought it would be fun to make a little tag using the tree. As luck would have it, I already had the ivory tag cut and ready to go.

I stamped two of the trees using Lucky Limeade and Garden Green ink, die cut each one and then popped them on two different thicknesses of dimensional so they would sit at different heights.

The sentiment was stamped on a scrap of ivory, trimmed and layered on a strip of cherry Cobbler and a small piece of Print Poetry DSP. All of these pieces got a chevron cut on the ends before I adhered it to the tag with a couple more dimensionals.

A few red, gold and clear gems, silver star stickers and some ribbon and cord finish it off.

Okay, I admit it. Christmas is my favorite holiday despite the fact that along with the twinkle lights, the rosy cheeked Santas and the sugar plums (anyone ever had one of those by the way?) there is usually a bit of a nip in the air and some white stuff on the ground. THAT I don’t look forward to so much. Well, at least not until I’m snug as a bug in my vacation jammies and I don’t have to actually GO anywhere. I do, however, have a terrible weakness for Christmas stamps and generally find way more card ideas than I can possibly complete in a single holiday season so I am starting them here a little early. Okay, a lot early. I am skipping Halloween entirely and going straight to Christmas!

Today I have a trio of cards using nearly all of the ornaments from the set

Christmas Collectibles.

This was a new set last year and it’s easily as fun as the Delightful Decorations set that was its predecessor. It helps that there’s a matching punch too!

My first card is done in Bermuda Bay, Smoky Slate and white. I added in some Encore silver snowflakes from the Northern Hearts set and a Bermuda Bay swirl from Priceless. A few coordinating strips of Washi tape, some gems and metallic nailhead stickers, and strand or two of silver cord add the sparkle and interest. I also rounded opposing corners on all the panels and the base card and finished it off with a sentiment flag that I stamped, hand trimmed and wrapped around the silver ornament cord

My second card is very traditional in its color scheme of Real Red, Lucky Limeade and Chocolate Chip.

I started with a Lucky Limeade card base and layered that with a panel of white with a punched scallop edge. The Real Red panel was punched with the ornament and then folder embossed using my Darice Circle Interlock folder.

The Chocolate Chip and Real Red ornaments were stamped, punched and adhered to the red panel with dimensionals then tied with the silver cord. The ends were adhered to the reverse side of the red panel and the Lucky Limeade ornament was stamped, punched then inserted into the punched window.

I finished it off with a Lucky Limeade sentiment on a hand trimmed flag of white and few clear rhinestones on the ornaments.

My last card today is very NON-Traditional. In fact the card base and layers were headed toward becoming a birthday card until I decided to go in the holiday direction with it.

My card base for this one is Rose Red and the layers are Pretty in Pink and a strip of DSP from the Print Poetry stack. The Pretty in Pink section was folder embossed using my Cuttlebug Christmas Ornaments folder and I affixed the ribbon at the seam before adhering the panel to the card.

The tag is cut and punched from a strip of ivory cs. I used the tag topper punch for the top and a corner chomper for the bottom two corners. The edges were sponged with Rose Red and I stamped a Wild Wasabi swirl near the bottom before slipping the ends of my knot through the hole at the top of the tag.

The ornaments were stamped in Rose Red, Wild Wasabi and Crushed curry. I used the Christmas ornament punch, the Mosaic punch and the 7/8 inch scallop circle punch to get my pieces and then added them to the tag with foam dimensionals.

Finally, a button tied with baker twine and a little sentiment flag plus a red and green gem for the ornaments wrap this one up.